


Vigil

by pensivetense (Styre)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Beholding!Martin, Canon divergence from episode 158, M/M, Monster!Jon, Peter Lukas’s existence is ignored, Sort Of, bad ending but better than canon?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26583382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Styre/pseuds/pensivetense
Summary: So, what if Elias didn’t win the bet?
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 73





	Vigil

Basira isn’t surprised when Elias Bouchard ‘dies’. Or rather, is declared dead; no one has seen him since Jon emerged from the tunnels, shaken and alone. She’s had other things on her mind, anyway—there’s Daisy to track, and it’s proving frustrating. Even in the grips of the Hunt her partner is canny enough to misdirect and cover her tracks, and if they know intimately how each other thinks, well, that only serves to draw out the chase. Basira carefully doesn’t consider that the perfection with which she is being led around to clues and trails gone almost cold is on purpose, a game of the Hunt, almost flirtatious in its playful coyness. The torn and mutilated bodies are almost beginning to feel like gifts, rats dropped on her doorstep by an overeager cat. (She tries not to think about how this makes her feel.)

Still, she isn’t really surprised when new Head of Institute calls her to his office. His name is... Daniel, she believes, which she vaguely recognises as belonging to one of the library staff. He’d been unobtrusive but patient with her voracious reading during her tenure as a hostage, always willing to help her find whatever books she needed. She considers feeling bad for him, but finds she really doesn’t. She’s got too much of her own bullshit to feel bad about already. Instead, she settles on wary. 

It’s Elias, Basira tells herself. Jonah. Whatever. No matter what he looks like now, it’s Elias. She can’t let her guard down. 

“Basira,” he says, quiet and... well, from anyone else she’d call it _sad_. She just snorts and makes eye contact, strong and direct. She won’t cower, she won’t be prey here. 

His eyes are... Basira could have sworn they were a peculiarly pale green. Maybe it was just the harsh fluorescents at the prison. In the warm, soft light of the office, she can see that they’re definitely blue. 

“I have something for you.”

“Huh.” It’s her contract of employment. “And what do you want me to do with this?”

“It’s yours if you want it. I mean, I can always renew it if you want, but, well. You’re not bound here any more. I- you probably felt it.”

Yeah, that had been a headache. It had hit in the middle of the Hunter fight. She’d genuinely though she was going to die for a moment, but then it had stopped and she’d gotten up, blood streaming down from her eyes but apparently having done no actual damage. She’d stumbled out into the upper levels of the Institute to find the rest of the employees in much the same condition, and the corpse of Julia Montauk cooling in the lobby. Daisy, apparently unaffected, had been long gone. 

‘Daniel’ smiles faintly. “I’m sorry, Basira.”

He almost sounds genuinely apologetic. Elias has never sounded apologetic; if anything, he’s been smugger than ever whenever she’s tried to call him out. 

“Don’t do that,” she growls. “Look, say I believe you. How do I know you’re not just getting me out of the way so you can do your—whatever you call your ritual.”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “It was... well, let’s just say it’s been disrupted.”

“Sure. And the Extinction? Not a threat anymore?”

“Honestly, Basira, does it actually matter to you? You never cared before. Look, you have... I’m giving you the opportunity to go to Daisy. Don’t waste it.”

Something is wrong. Everything about this is wrong. It’s a trick, a test, a trap. Elias has never been kind before. She remembers being sent off on a wild goose chase while Jon dove into a coffin, and wonders what purpose he could have for getting her out of the way, and why he wouldn’t just kill her. 

She looks between the contract of employment, and not-Daniel at his desk, eyes creased with what she might trick herself into believing is pain, and her own hand, which has held tight to Daisy all these years, and makes her choice. Whatever this is, whatever is going on here, she wants no part of it. She takes the paper and leaves. 

“Good on you,” says... whoever the hell’s voice it is, softly from behind her. It sounds sincere. She shudders. 

———

Jon ascends the steps to the Panopticon slowly. It’s almost meditative, almost carries the weight of a ritual, though if it is it’s a ritual of the small and mundane. He holds a crate in one hand, a few papers in the bottom of it, and a tape recorder in the other. 

Martin, frozen and blank-faced but still standing dead in the centre of the tower, watches him without eyes. Martin’s actual eyes are probably rolling in his head; he finds these visits pointless, if vaguely touching. They’d only just parted an hour ago, there’s no real need to be here. But it’s good for Jon to see him like this, too, if only to remember just whose hand he’s holding, just whose chest he wakes curled up against in the morning. 

He pulls out the stack of statements and sets the crate down, perches himself on top of it. 

He’s not really hungry. He’d had someone’s childhood memory of an impossible house fire that morning on the Tube, and had had to double back because he’d overshot his stop. 

It’s not as though he’ll get in trouble with his boss for being a few minutes late. 

He knows he should stop, he really does... but it’s so easy now, without Basira’s eyes on him and Daisy’s hand to hold and Elias’s expectations to prove wrong. Martin, he knows, cannot ever judge him for his actions, and it’s... freeing, to be so filled with fear and love. It’s remarkable, too, just how quickly he’s stopped caring about the morality of it. He wonders sometimes if he ever truly did. 

Still, hungry or not, this is his little ritual, a meal shared; it must be honoured. 

He settles down at Martin’s feet and picks the first paper off his pile of statements. The recorder clicks on.


End file.
